Page 17 of Misguided
SEVEN
Dog
Jesus fuck, I had to get out of there. She’s always been an entitled bitch, but this past year has definitely erased that attitude right out of her. She’s every part the Mel I remember, yet a totally new person at the same time. Inch by inch, hour by hour, she’s showing just how human she is.
She’s hurt, and fuck it all if that feeling didn’t resonate throughout me as I picked her up off the landing. I know how it burns, the twist of injustice as the reality sets in.
Someone you love is gone. Every last thing you said to them plays through your mind. The way you treated them over the years: the times you weren’t as grateful as you perhaps should have been, the times you didn’t give them the last donut in the box, the times you argued until they relented and let you watch the channel you chose—pathetic shit like that.
It burns, all of it. Because no matter what you do, there’s no going back and fixing things now.
At least with Mom, I had the chance to tell her I loved her as she slipped away. Mel didn’t even get that. She got nothing.
It sucks.
“Where you headed?” Fingers, our mechanic, asks as I mount my bike.
I know he doesn’t inquire to be nosey; he simply wants to make conversation.
“Not sure yet.” Might go get something to eat. Might keep on going until I find myself on the doorstep of one of our offsite members. Maybe even stretch it as far as our associate, Bronx, down in Kansas City.
I just need away from here until I work out why the need to impress that princess upstairs burns at me like a smoldering ember stuck against my skin.
What does she matter to a clown like me? I joined this club as a way to stick it to my old man, to show the fucker his glass towers and business suits mean nothing to me. To show him I’m not my brother—I want to be free to live my life how I choose.
I need to remember that.
I didn’t come here looking for anything other than a bit of fun, and that woman up there? Well shit, she commands something that’s on a whole other plane than what I usually offer to the muffler bunnies that tumble through our gates on a weekend. It was that exact realization that got me in the shit the first time she friend-zoned me, and it’s that realization that reminds me my fantasies of snaring a president’s daughter were nothing but that—dreams.
I made my peace with getting what I could as her friend years ago. No need to fuck it all up now because my dick’s as hard as steel from the thrill of seeing her alive and kicking.
“Well,” Fingers says, breaking my daze. “Let me know when you’re next in for a while because you’re overdue a service.”
“Sure thing.” I spark the engine to life to cut off any further conversation and idle out into the yard.
The prospects already wheel the gate open as I approach, which is unusual—I soon see why.
Callum rides in, rolling to a stop beside me after he spots me heading the opposite way.
“Where you headed?” he shouts over the thump of his engine.
Do I need to start posting bulletins or some shit? “Out.”
“Yeah, but where?”
I roll my eyes and answer. “I don’t know.”
“Hungry?”
“Sure.”
I scowl into my side mirror as he turns around behind me, and then gestures for me to follow. The whole eight miles to the diner we frequent, I spend plotting ways to shake him the minute we arrive.
What the fuck is his deal? He wanted something from me, he could have waited until I got back.
Locals eye us disinterestedly as we back the bikes to the curb, and switch off. They’re used to us coming here; our members as much of a fixture as the worn red vinyl seats around the tables.
“Can I ask what the buddy-up is for?” I set my helmet on the handlebars, winking at a cute brunette who blatantly eyes me through the window of the diner.